


little more than longing

by shepherd



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Crushes, Inspired by Art, M/M, Pre Brotherhood, Pre-Canon, Puberty, Sexuality Crisis, Teasing, i say pre brotherhood but i cant remember how old they are in brotherhood, id say like sixteen and seventeen i guess, ignis is awkward and firey all in one and thats what i love about him tbh, intensity and daftness, it's suggestive in places but not deserving of anything more than a T rating tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 00:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shepherd/pseuds/shepherd
Summary: Ignis and Gladio have a chance meeting in the Citadel library, and a stark realisation hits like a blow to Ignis' gut.





	little more than longing

So focused on the book he had set his heart on, straining and struggling only to remain inches away and his fingertips finding only air, Ignis had not heard even the heavy footfalls from beyond. He lifted high onto the very tips of his toes and pushed with determination and a lust for knowledge he could not deny. It made him waver, hand catching against the pale, glossy wood. But want pushed him on, creeping closer and closer.

Then a hand graced his lower back. It was wide and warm through his shirt, and the sudden contact made him jump. Dropping down from his tiptoes he anticipated the stern face of the librarian or the archivist scowling down at him with sharp words waiting. With his heart in his throat and half a dozen apologies and pleas for mercy on his tongue, the dread could not be subdued -- until there was dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, and while the tension refused to dissipate yet, it held entirely different powers.

Gladio wore a sly grin, eyes creasing at the corners. "Need a hand there?"

The embarrassment warmed Ignis' cheeks. He prayed it didn't show. Clutching the book that he already managed to pluck from the lower shelves he refused to let it scald him. "I didn't hear you come in."

That dangerous smile only widened. “Practising my creeping around,” he said, playful as ever despite his age. Those firm eyes remained on him. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

There were few windows in the library to protect the older tomes. Barely any natural life brightened the lower floors of the Citadel and lanterns were laid on each oak table. In Ignis’ cosy corner there was only one source of light. Even the librarian and the archivists’ office had long since gone dark. Hours past when Ignis had hurriedly slipped past the librarian’s desk he already found him nodding off, chin on his chest and cup of tea precariously balanced on folders full of numbers. The evening had already run late. Six only knew what time he was supposed to be home and abed. But uncertainty hardly befit an advisor. He swallowed down the alarm and straightened up. He lifted his chin high.

“Light reading,” he answered, and pushed his slipping glasses up his broad nose. “I’ll be leaving soon. Just a matter of finishing up.”

This time Gladio laughed. Finally, the hand disappeared. It left a chill in its wake – at least until Gladio stepped in closer. As always, he smelt of orange amber and sweat, hastily applied after a late afternoon’s workout. It prickled his nose. “Looked like you were struggling.”

Standing side to side their differences were infuriatingly obvious. With no more than a full year between them there was almost a full half foot. In his head Ignis knew it meant little. In his heart and guts it meant everything. Ignis was eye to eye with his collarbones. “I can handle it,” he said, stiffly.

“Yeah?” Those eyes gleamed. Gladio reached to scratch thoughtlessly at his cheek. He had the audacity, the very hall to have the beginnings of stubble at his age. It wasn’t ever patchy. “How’s that going for you?”

Ignis exhaled with a hiss through his nose. “Very well, thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Craning his head up, Gladio surveyed their options. He drew his lower lip between his teeth and Ignis determinedly look away and began to concern himself with the old water stains in the bookcase.

Each book was tightly packed in. Bound leather core engraved black or gold titled, bold enough to read in even the weak light. Treaties and books on family histories made the oak softly creak. In the silence it seemed louder than truth. Gladio hummed a small tune to himself, peering at each of them. Nothing seemed to bother him as always. A boy of his height could reach them all too easily. There were stepladders to fetch those kept higher – and nearly always handy adults, when Ignis was a brighter eyed lad of eight, saccharine sweet and too small to reach near enough anything – but the librarian was all too often absent these days and the archivist was sour, dismissive in his new and lofty position after the passing of the last. Ignis missed him. There was always a jar of sweets kept on hand for the littler ones, even as Ignis became no longer so little, but now it was replaced with a jar of bitter mints, not to be shared. Ignis didn’t dare speak to him, anxiety sticking each of his words to his uneasy tongue.

He squirmed. There was nothing he could say to Gladiolus – tall, handsome, flawless Gladiolus. Nothing that wouldn’t be clumsy and foolish. He breathed unsteadily and cursed that they were alone. The book meant little to him in the grand scheme of tonight. It could all wait. Solheim languages were an interest. Nothing to do with keeping Noctis fed or keeping a smile on his face – then, did it really matter at all? Was it all pointless?

But Gladio shifted. He reached up and grasped the lip of the spine that Ignis desired. Tugging it loose he shifted a layer of thick dust. Ignis watched it slowly drift and settle over them, and sparingly glanced at Gladio’s strong forearms, exposed thanks a short-sleeved shirt. So close, Ignis could feel and silently enjoy the warmth of his body, the dark shirt plain but cotton soft and tight against his thickening biceps. Those working muscles tensed and the tendons flexed hard. The scent of amber filled his nostrils.

When his shirt sagged, the collar pulling away from his body, Ignis caught the sight of stark collarbones and the beginning of the swell of muscle. Ignis could see the dip of his chest and the delightfully rich colour of his soft and tan skin. Dust greyed him, littered over broad shoulders, and Ignis’ mouth was as dry as the decades old paper that surrounded them.

Gladio peered at the cover, just out of his sight. It was adorned with symbols even Ignis could barely understand, having poured the droplets of free time he had into the study of the ancient language. They were the kind long forgotten to all past the students of most distant history **.** Embarrassment made the skin around Ignis’ own collar hot. His tie was abruptly much too tight, and he reached up to tug at it, subtly losing it, swallowing against the confines. Gladio inspected it as intently as Ignis inspected him – curious eyes, hot and bold like the glow of sunlight, and swallowing the jealousy was the most bitter pill Ignis had been forced to take by far. He hung his head, looking away before he risked being caught, and bravery fled. He pulled his old book closer and tried very hard not to be overwhelmed by the thoughts of Gladio’s muscle and the tang of sweat.

Their shoulders brushed. They stood much too close for Ignis’ liking, and yet not close enough. Without letting himself be lost in thought Ignis took the chance to step away. He peeked up again through the bits of hair that swept across his forehead, some modest daring coming to him in his darkest hour and he found Gladio’s smile. Genuine and warm, the kind that crawled beneath Ignis’ skin to stay.

“Solheim,” He mumbled, and glanced aside at Ignis as if waiting for answers, an explanation. But his throat dipped as he swallowed, and Ignis’ eyes were fascinated with the bulge, the stark lines and the soft curves, the hair dotted along the long line of his throat. He had cut himself, recently. The tiny wound was red. And the scent of him –

Ignis had found himself easily distracted as of late.

It wasn’t only Gladio. It was seemingly any boy who gave him a sparing glance, and those who strolled past without even a look. Boys who were privately tutored alongside him with their noses stuck in books, or the ones who chattered ceaselessly even as their tutor sternly directed them across the room, away from their friends. The sons of ambassadors who wandered amongst the gardens with crests pinned to their chests and polite smiles, or the sons of staff who visited their parents on sunny afternoons and embraced them warmly. Soft hearted boys, and those with stubbled jaws, and those with wicked smiles. Medals and books on poetry and kittens in their hands. Hands that could hurt but also heal.

Not just Gladio, and that was the mess of it all. He just happened to stand chief amongst them. The one who lingered in his thoughts and starred in the more suggestive dreams. Godlike, if Ignis were to be frank, as shameless and hungry as he dared imagine. Ignis was a lowly child plucked out of the rabble while Gladio was noble, beautiful, not unlike a knight that had burst free from a colourful children’s tale. As bold as his lord father and as strong as his lady mother and Ignis was merely a servant in a starring role, no matter how hard he strove to be perfect. No amount of culinary ability or skill in dead languages would make his blood any greater.

Gladio was everything Ignis wanted to be, and everything he simply wanted.

Training by his side was the sweetest torture. The ring was somewhere Ignis could prove himself, unbelievably fast on both his feet and with a blade and he could outdo the heaviest soldiers, the hardest hitters. But he had yet to grown into his own body – at fourteen he remained lanky, long limbs and awkward gait. Almost fifteen and yet no change. It seemed by the time the softness of youth had left Ignis’ cheeks Gladio would be a man grown and with the prowess and notches in his bedpost to match. Ignis could already see his power, hoisting a greatsword or a shield half his side with what seemed little effort. It was awe-inspiring. For a reason Ignis dare not place, it caused a roiling in his gut.

Gladio was a boy utterly different. Ignis just struggled to place how in a way that didn’t make him feel the frozen touch of fear.

But the slap of a book against a heavy palm shocked him. Gladio’s long fingers spread against the leather. The nails of an index finger still wore traces of deep purple nail polish, no doubt chipped mostly away from a long weekend with his sister. “Didn’t think you’d be into that,” he murmured, as if they knew much of each other at all. What Gladio knew of him could fill a cup. What he cared for him, a thimble.

Ignis remained silent. The edge of Gladio’s jaw, so alike his mother’s, was fascinating to him. A boy of sixteen, already built like a man, like a redwood tree impossible to be felled. Something that couldn’t be ignored.

The book was pressed firmly against Ignis’ chest. Gladio even dared to take his hand, guiding his wrist and pressing his hand against the spine. When his fingertips brushed the point where Ignis’ pulse thrummed, he could have dropped it all. Everything was heavier than he expected, and he steeled himself, pulling his new treasure close to his centre. Stabilizing himself was close to an impossibility.

Ignis glanced up at him. His shoulders were terse, and tendons tightly knit. He clutched the book like a lifeline. A gift might have been a gift, but from Gladio --

Uncertainty wracked him to his very core. _Gladiolus_ , he considered saying, but those rich amber eyes rendered him useless. Instead he swallowed and stared, unblinking.

Gladio’s expression barely shifted. Those brows were raised, mood unreadable, but his eyes gleamed.

“Enjoy,” he said with an endearing gruffness. And then a wink, and Ignis’ guts unravelled entirely. The very bottom of his stomach collapses with no fanfare and no warning, his world thrown off its axis on a late Monday evening.

Every organ felt much too large for such a small body. There was not enough air to fill his lungs. Ignis shrank as they grew and Gladio could easily have been a giant in Ignis’ wide eyes. Fire heated his cheeks – they burnt intensely, fire making a blotchy mess of his fair skin. He ducked his head low, but it was far too late – the image of Gladio was frozen within his mind, teasing and careless, hair that could be satin soft against his hands and biceps that would be delightfully firm. The thought of him was locked into Ignis’ gaze, cloying, and enough to make his head spin. Any exhaustion from a long day of sitting in on small, preparational meetings and being grilled by his tutor abruptly vanished, like it had never been there to begin with. Only burning curiosity and the thickness of embarrassment lingered. Ignis chided himself – he knew all too well he would sooner be able to embrace a star in the night sky than an Amicitia, and the fire raged on regardless.

 _What a mess._ Whiskey eyes would haunt him tonight, and perhaps each after. Hands and skin and laughter that made Ignis want to shout. A bed that was too empty, a mouth too inexperienced.

He kept his head held low – befitting of one of his blood. “Thank you,” he said in a meeker voice than intended, and caught himself, adding on in a rush, “my lord.”

Gladio seemed not to hear. Scratching at the shortened portion of his hair, bristling under blunt nails, he continued. “You should get to bed. You’re supposed to be one of the good little boys, Igs.”

He spoke lightly but it was another blow to Ignis’ stomach. That fire rose, determined to scald or destroy. Unsure of what to do with his hands, Ignis rubbed hard at one of his smooth cheeks. It was flaming hot to the touch. _Good little boy_ , Gladio thought. He was wrong, and Ignis’ terrible thoughts would prove him so. “What are you doing up,” he shot back weakly, and the mischief that was suddenly written all over the older boy’s face only worsened that feeling of damnation.

“Never you mind,” he said, low enough to seemingly shake the ground and unsettle the hundreds of books around them. The sheer power of him could no longer be contained. Even when his finger appeared, poking hard but playfully at the tip of Ignis’ nose Ignis could manage no frustration. He could feel the ebbing warmth of Gladio’s skin, going cross eyed in an attempt to watch, and he longer to have hat hand against the small of his back once more. That hand everywhere and nowhere, Ignis wanting equally to throw himself into the moment and yet shy away. Ignis’ eyes lingered on Gladio’s lips. Plump and soft. He had thought about those lips a few times before and knew he would revisit them with renewed purpose and vigour tonight.

A kiss was yet a foreign thing to him. Far away and secretly exciting in a way he would admit to none. Gladio’s lips in particular enthralled him, and even if he noticed Ignis’ longing, the boy himself paid it no heed.

The evening had been cold. Ignis had his jacket slung over a nearby chair, thermal gloves tucked in their pockets. It was the dead of winter and Ignis could have used a little company, a hand knocking against his, breath against his lips. Something to get him riled – something to get him feverish --

“Get yourself to bed, Iggy, like a good boy,” he told him with just enough bite to get Ignis flushed brighter than ever before, and when he turned away with one last wink, he reduced Ignis to little more than longing.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by some art I saw on twitter but I haven't been able to find it since.
> 
> :(


End file.
